COP29: 'Pay up' for climate say activists who held mass protest at Baku summit
Al Gore says the fossil fuel industry "hamstrung this process in all 32 years since the first Rio summit"
‘Pay up’ was the resounding call from hundreds of activists who staged a major rally at the UN climate summit on Saturday as negotiations on finance continued. Groups are calling on negotiators to deliver the $5 trillion needed annually by 2030 according to research by US think tank World Resources Institute - to help poor countries cope with the crisis.
But no one was there to listen to the pleas of aid agencies, charities, climate activists, indigenous people and nature defenders who were hemmed into one corner of a vast empty hall at COP29 by security, with limited access to the press.
We understand those taking part were warned that chanting, singing, clapping, foot-tapping, drumming and rallying cries are banned in communal areas of the conference - and if anyone rebels they could lose their badge and Azerbaijan visa.
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So as hundreds filed out into the summit’s hallways in single file before sitting down on both sides of the hall, the protest was reduced to humming and finger snapping - but their banners spelled out their asks clearly:
Take the world’s biggest problem to the highest court
- Make the fossil fuel industry pay
- Global north pay your climate debt
- Stop fuelling ecocide
- No carbon markets
- Defund fossil fuels
- Don’t gas the south
- Climate justice is workers justice
- Stop industrialised agriculture
Director of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty, Alex Rafalowicz, said: “The fast and fair phase out of fossil fuels can only happen if it’s funded. This COP must send a signal that polluters will pay and that those who are committed to phasing out fossil fuels are rewarded.”
Countries around the world have now been negotiating on the next steps to save the planet at COP29 for a week.
In that time they have drafted text to climate finance, with a figure of $1.3 trillion, being bandied about while a decision on the verification of information around carbon markets was pushed through on day one without proper negotiation according to some. But there has been little talk of the ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels agreed at last year’s summit.
Ireland’s climate minister Eamon Ryan is leading negotiations on adaptation with Costa Rica's Franz Tattenbach. He said: “It’s not as bad as it might look. There’s been a lot of rows at a very senior level... but negotiators working behind the scenes [have] continued.
“It would be unforgivable for us to let this fall - our world is imperilled.”
Minister Ryan said he agrees with global climate leaders including former Irish president Mary Robinson; former Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-Moon; former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change who have raised concerns about COP processes.
They signed a letter to UNFCCC’s Simon Stiell calling for strict eligibility criteria for COP hosts to support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy.
Ex US Vice President Al Gore also called for an overhaul of the COP process, after 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access this year and host country, Azerbaijan, has been doing oil and gas deals.
He said lobbyists have been allowed to “infiltrate, dominate and capture the COP process” which has now been led by a petrostate for the third year running. And have “hamstrung” the process since a now dead US coal and oil lobbyist got countries to rule that total consensus is needed on every COP decision 32 years ago.
Mr Gore added: “Most UN processes have the ability to have a super majority vote.
“They don’t give every one of the 194 nations in the world a veto power over what the world can decide. How could you ever get anything done that way?
“The default rule was consensus - that was by design of the fossil fuel industry - they hamstrung this process in all 32 years since the first Rio summit. It’s another reform that needs to be implemented.”
Minister Ryan admitted COP “is far from ideal. it needs to be more transparent but... it’s the only way we can do this.
“Even if we were to change the process we have to get 200 countries to agree to do that - that’s not going to be decided next week.
“What is going to be decided is the finance. We all fall if we don’t get agreement.”
We will be bringing all the latest updates from the COP29 climate summit in Baku with support from Global Ireland. You can follow our environment correspondent on the ground @ShaunaReports on X/ @shaunacorr.bsky.social.
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